Zero-click searches. AI overviews. Rising ad costs.

For many businesses, traffic feels harder to earn than ever.

But today’s guest believes we are not entering the end of SEO. We are entering the most exciting era of search yet.

Nick Eubanks is VP of Owned Media at Semrush, a lifelong “traffic junkie,” and one of the sharpest minds in digital strategy today. Over the past 20 years, Nick has built, bought, and scaled digital assets by mastering one thing: how and where audiences actually discover brands.

In this episode, Nick breaks down why the old “rank on Google and wait” playbook is breaking, and how businesses can shift from chasing clicks to owning attention across Google, YouTube, TikTok, Amazon, Reddit, and even ChatGPT.

If you want your website to become a true growth engine, not just a brochure, this conversation will change how you think about traffic forever.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why Nick calls himself a “traffic junkie” and how that mindset shaped his career
  
  
• Why SEO is not dying, but search has expanded far beyond Google
  
  
• What “Search Everywhere Optimization” really means for SMEs
  
  
• How AI is changing discovery without killing SEO fundamentals
  
  
• Why informational content still matters, but formats must evolve
  
  
• The traffic-first approach: find sustainable traffic before figuring out what to sell
  
  
• How Nick helped a global brand generate $60M in organic revenue from a single page
  
  
• Why owned media (blogs, newsletters, communities, content assets) is the most defensible growth strategy today
  
  
• The shift from click share to surface share in an AI-driven world
  
  
• The first step any business should take when building an owned media strategy
  
  
• Nick’s billboard advice for growing traffic in 2025 and beyond
  
  

A Standout Story from the Episode

Nick shares one of the most powerful SEO case studies you will ever hear.

A multi-billion-dollar travel brand could not rank for its most valuable keyword despite working with an agency for seven years. In one meeting, Nick spotted a single canonical tag error. Removing it moved the page from page two to page one in days. After a year of focused optimization, that single page went on to generate $60 million in organic revenue in one year, the largest attributable SEO win Nick has ever seen.

Key Mindset Shift

“Stop chasing algorithms. Start owning surfaces.”

Nick explains why businesses must think less about rankings and more about where their audience looks for answers, what they trust, and how to show up across every surface that matters.

About the Guest

Nick Eubanks is VP of Owned Media at Semrush and a veteran digital strategist with over two decades of experience in SEO, product-led growth, and digital asset acquisition. He has built agencies, lead generation businesses, affiliate sites, communities, and media brands, including Traffic Think Tank, and now leads Semrush’s owned media strategy.

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